Finnish, Helsinki-based guitarist, Arabic oud player and composer Jussi Reijonen offers an intimate, meditative journey on his solo album sayr: salt | thirst, by the archaic sound and feel of a late-1940s Gibson LG-2 steel-string acoustic guitar generously gifted to Reijonen by a former student, recorded at Reijonen’s home studio, one afternoon in March 2025, and released by his own label, unmusic.
Sayr (سير) (course or motion in Arabic) is the abstract concept of any Arabic maqam, encompassing the sequence of different influences, melodies, and entire songs in the maqam. The two extended pieces are free-associative and spontaneous, rugged and earthy, unedited, but they faithfully reflect Reijonen’s rich, poetic musical universe. These introspective pieces explore an acoustemological memory palace: a pathway of memory recalled and reimagined through music.
You can trace echoes of Iraqi-Assyrian oud master Munir Bachir, Nubian oud player Hanza El-Din, Egyptian-Druze oud player (and vocalist and actor) Farid al-Atrash, American blues guitarist-songwriter Lightnin’ Hopkins, Malian guitarist Ali Farka Touré, Moroccan Gnawa guembri player Mahmoud Guinia, Spanish flamenco master Paco de Lucía, Egyptian composer Riad alSunbatti and vocalist Umm Kulthum, Lebanese vocalist Fairuz, and Andalucian-Roma Flamenco vocalist Camarón de la Isla. Reijonen thanks all of them «for leaving us trails».
Reijonen seeks in these beautiful improvisations the still point described by the English poet T.S. Elliot in his Four Quartets, and especially in the first of these four poems, «Burnt Norton: II» (1936): «At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; / Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, / But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, / Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, / Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, / There would be no dance, and there is only the dance». And Reijonen concludes: «for there to be motion, there needs to be stillness as its counterpoint and vice versa, since through their dance, each defines the other».
And more good news. sayr provides the framework for an evolving musical diary, an upcoming series of Reijonen’s improvised solo performances that he plans to release. The second album in this series will capture a concert of Reijonen playing a steel-string acoustic guitar and an Arabic oud.
Eyal Hareuveni
Jussi Reijonen (acoustic guitar)
